Chloroplast microsatellites: new tools for studies in plant ecology and systematics

The nonrecombinant, uniparentally inherited nature of organelle genomes<br/>makes them useful tools for evolutionary studies. However, in plants, detecting<br/>useful polymorphism at the population level is often difficult because of the<br/>low level of substitutions in the chloroplast genome, and because of the slow<br/>substitution rates and intramolecular recombination of mtDNA. Chloroplast<br/>microsatellites represent potentially useful markers to circumvent this problem<br/>and, to date, studies have demonstrated high levels of intraspecific variability.<br/>Here,we discuss the use of these markers in ecological and evolutionary<br/>studies of plants, as well as highlighting some of the potential problems<br/>associated with such use.